Many people coming online and deciding to sell affiliate products
never sell a single product. The reason is glaringly obvious, and
it's not the unfortunate affiliate marketer's fault.
Think about any job that you've ever held in the offline world.
What happened? You were hired and told when to report for work.
When you showed up for work you were entered into training.
Depending upon the job, you spent weeks, sometimes even months,
with a trainer guiding you and looking over your shoulder.
Compare that with your typical affiliate program that the
complete newbie can join.
You fill out an affiliate registration form and are handed an
affiliate link. With some affiliate programs you are also
directed to an affiliate resource center.
With a few of the better affiliate programs, you are also
directed to some affiliate training videos. The affiliate
training videos are the exception rather than the rule.
Affiliate marketers are basically left to figure out what works
all on their own.
It's really not much better for new people coming online who
decide to launch their own product.
They come online and read over and over again that you really
need you own product. So they decide to create one, perhaps
putting it on Clickbank, or a somewhat better option - decide to
use the Rapid Action Profits script.
These new product owners understand that they need affiliates, so
they put a link to an affiliate signup page somewhere on their
site. They often stick this affiliate program signup link in the
worse possible place - right on their salespage where it
distracts buying customers.
As a side-note, a better place to put your affiliate signup
invitation is on your download page, or you can tell your new
customers about your affiliate program in a follow-up email. What
better person to recruit as an affiliate than a satisfied
customer who actually knows your product?
These new product owners sign up affiliates, give them their
affiliate links (and a few tools) and then wait for the orders to
come flooding in.
When the orders don't come surging in, the new product own
wonders what he did wrong, and concludes that affiliate programs
really don't work.
The problem in both of the above cases is simply a lack of
adequate training for affiliates in what works in promoting
affiliate products.
The sad part is that there is lots of information available on
what has proven to work for top producing affiliates. I, as a
super affiliate, have written over 1300 article on the topic of
ecommerce. Many of those articles outline techniques that work
flawlessly for me.
For the product owner or affiliate program operator, there are
entire affiliate training programs in a box. One that I looked at
recently included 52 weekly autoresponder training sessions. It
even included video lessons to SHOW the struggling affiliate how
to do many things.
Each of the weekly lessons in that "affiliate training program
in a box" taught a skill that the aspiring affiliate marketer
needs to understand.
Seasoned marketers and copywriters understand that marketing is
not guessing. It's testing until you discover what works, and
then USING those things proven to work.
Seasoned marketers and copywriters understand that they are often
WRONG as far as what they think will work. Only the market
decides what will work. That's why they don't experiment, but
instead stick with the "tried and true."
If you are a new (or unsuccessful) affiliate marketer, your
solution is simple - learn and stick with what's already proven
to work.
If you are a product owner with an affiliate program that's NOT
producing, your solution is simple - train your affiliates.
When you train your affiliate, they will experience success
selling your products, and having finally figured it out, will
double their efforts in promoting your products.
Like any other paying job in the world, affiliate marketing does
require training. Make sure that you're not overlooking this
critical element of the online marketing puzzle!
Willie Crawford is a leading Internet marketing and
traffic generation expert. His favorite method for
generating free website traffic is distributing videos,
audios, articles and press releases using the automated
distribution service at http://EasyPushButtonTraffic.com.